"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
The world grew a little larger today. Not by impressive measures or standards, but it largened enough to force a mouthful of fear down her throat. Reflexively she swallows as though consumption might rid her of the terror that had started to line the edges of her vision with red. Swallowing does nothing of course - she hadn't really thought it would - and not even the act of pretending was enough to soothe the beat of her frenzied heartbeat. But she had to try something. How desperately she wished it would have though; she was ready for something (ANYTHING) to give.
The others must think her strange for the way she walks stiffly past them and towards the heart of the riverland. Her glossy brown eyes are wide and her ears strictly upright and every step forward is carefully, slowly, painfully pre-meditated. She doesn't dare make eye contact with any of the others, despite the palpable aura of caution around her that she just knows they can sense. It's enough to make them stir and pause their afternoon grazing, exchanging glances with one another and around them as if there were something physical to legitimately be afraid of. But no, it's just the odd speckled anomaly that is terrified of a world she can't even begin to fathom.
It's frustrating. It's exhausting.
It's time for a break.
A withering oak becomes her temporary shield, a balm to the anxiety of self-inflicted exposure. It's a temporary remedy for a complex situation, but in this moment it's enough to allow her borrowed peace.
He was free to walk among Beqanna once more, in the last months of his life he had made many mistakes. He allowed his emotions to decide his actions, but he had a second chance now. He wouldn't make the same mistake twice.
The dapple stag who was just as arrogant as before, found himself traveling the nomad lands. A task he enjoyed when he ruled a land, although now he finds himself a commoner like anyone else.
Though as he stands away from all the others his eyes catch a familar face. He watches as the mare moves through the land as if she was avoiding everyone at all cost. The gates of hell had opened but she walks like she is still dead.
He watches her until she stops by a large tree, he cocks his eye as she had caught his attention. The once queen was regal before, and seemed fearless the last they had interacted, it would have been best to leave her but he wasn't one to leave things alone.
The dapple stag makes his way across the opening until he stops a few paces before the old queen. Breckin dear, how are you? He asks to break the silence, but he already knows something was not right with her, he just doesn't know what.
That stride of his had held her captive - determined and confident with his approach - realizing that out of all the other far more interesting loners in this place, he had chosen her. A gruff Breckin is what he offers in the way of exchanging niceties - and with certainty no less - but there's no passage of recognition in her dark eyes, and his angular face is met with a vacant stare. But some silly, stubborn will stays her from swinging and peering around the trunk, or up between the dying limbs of the tree, trying for a glimpse of some lurking stranger that hadn't been there before.
Oh, but how badly she wanted to. Just to be certain.
And that expectant gaze patiently waiting for a response from her - it makes her prickle - that he would know more about herself than she did. A simple thing, just a name. But it's more than she had a moment before. It makes her blank expression sharpen and narrow, nearly accusatory in its nature, her chest swelling deeply as if she might....might what? Bark at him for asking some haggard-looking woman how she is doing?
It wasn't his fault.
That small, steely strength she had found becomes faulty - it fractures and spiderwebs, shifting and separating and weathering until it is nothing more than crumbling dust falling out of her palms between skeletal fingers. And when it's caught by the wind passing by, her gaze follows, casting back as if the question of who remained unanswered. It's a reflex of defeat, birthed from self-doubt, and the withered mare's tone conveys as much when her voice is finally found, "Do I know you?"
His newly yellow eyes gaze at her, she was certainly not the strong queen he had once met with. He wonders exactly what she had been through that left her a barren shell of the equine he once knew.
She breaths for a moment, he watches as her chest rises and falls, perhaps as if she was nervous or even irritated that he had approached her. But it wasn't until she spoke that she took him completely by shock.
Do I know you?
The words rattle his ears, for a moment his eyes grew widr but they quickly settle. Had she not remembered him...? But than it started to make sense, beqanna was full of magic, full of mind erasing possibilities. This shell of a woman had her memory erased, he could do with it as he pleases...he could create an imaginative life that they shared, or at least one that Breckin wouldn't know the truth from false. And in all honesty, Arthas had a thing for broken mares.
He dares to take one step closer to her, Breckin, what happened to you...you don't remember me....Arthas? We were friends.... His gaze falters to sorrow as it finds hers, continuing to move closer to her.
It’s a small thing, but it’s a thrilling thing, and it sends a tingle of recognition through her protruding spine. It’s hers. It belongs to her and no one can take it away from her again. Never could she have fathomed that a single word would make her as possessive as she suddenly felt. Wrong maybe, for being so giddy for such a feeling, but so very right.
“I - ” she starts, but stops abruptly when he dares a flagrant step closer. She didn’t like that. Arthas might have helped solve the mystery of her identity, but beyond that, there was no bright flame of acceptance starting to rekindle for what else had to say. In accordance, she stepped backward, swinging sideways to place the trunk of the tree between them. He might know who she was, but he could still be dangerous. She was still hesitant, still afraid and fear often bred caution.
“The only memory I can recall is waking up, and a boy finding me,” she at long last answers, peering warily at the strange yellow eyes of a man who earnestly claimed to know her. He could be lying, that’s possible, but he may be telling the truth. But how would she know, if she didn’t ask? And for a moment she is torn - split between uncertainty and a starving curiosity to know more.
The hunger won out.
Before he could lose interest and move on with his day, she presses urgently, “Were we close friends? How much can you tell me?”
He steps closee, yet she steps backwards. Her memory may be gone, but she was still a wise mare. Cautious of the stranger before her, possibly making his desire harder to achieve.
But to his relief he hadn't spooked her completely, she tells him what he suspects. She doesn't remember anything, how it was possible? He really wasn't sure, but she was eating out of his hand at this point.
Her curiosity had peaked and before he could say a word she asks about how they knew each other, if they were friends.
Oh yes Breckin! I was a king, and you were a queen! We were very close friends, while we rule our own lands. It pains me that you don't remember me....we were nearly lovers... He pauses as his gaze shifts away dramatically. But I died Breckin... His gaze shifts back to the mare, this time filled with joy.
We were given a second chance to be together Breckin! Won't you stay with me? He dares to step closer once more, he extends his maw too her, but he doesn't push it, he allows her to return the gesture should she please.
We don't have to be anything you don't want...but I simply can't let this second chance pass. He says as he pulls his maw back. He gazes at her, everything he had said was a lie, but his hunger for manipulation couldn't let this opportunity pass! All he had to do was make sure no one of major importance to her past finds them together....that would certainly foil his plan.
To her relief, he doesn’t bid her farewell and casually part ways. She had almost convinced herself that that was exactly what was about to happen when the silent seconds felt like a small eternity had slipped by. If he did just leave her there, what was she going to do then? It’s not like she had an actual plan in coming here; wandering had just felt natural and seemed like the best choice compared to staring at her sad reflection all day.
Just when she thought she had lost the only lead she had found, he talks. And it is the most beautiful and most wildly unexpected, practically unbelievable things she had ever heard. “A queen? Lovers? You died?” she parrots back at him, her spotted face scrunching into a very open show of disbelief. That didn’t sound like her at all, at least, not the ‘her’ she knew now. She can’t remember anything, but she’s almost certain that stranger things might be possible in this place though. Maybe.
So lost in thought, she’s only mildly aware that he is trying to step closer again, reaching and seeking for some friendly sign reciprocation. She doesn’t return the gesture, be it shock or unease or whatever, but she doesn’t move away either and merely regards his movements cautiously with quiet, dark eyes. “I’ll stay with you,” she starts, her head rising to reach his gaze, but quickly adds, “so long as you keep helping me fill in the gaps.”
By rights of politeness, she should ask him how he died and how he had been faring since his apparent rebirth. If they were nearly lovers and had been friends at the least, then that would be the right thing to do. But she doesn’t. Right now she wants nothing more than to be selfishly, irrevocably thirsty and to drink up everything he can pour about herself. “Do I have a home? Where is it? Can you take me there?”
